


these little wars of words

by fideliant



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Being Lost, Frottage, Hypothermia, M/M, Oral Sex, Road Trips, Sharing Body Heat, Stranded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 03:53:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3342680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fideliant/pseuds/fideliant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rules For Travelling With Thorin Oakenshield:<br/>#1 - Don't let Thorin navigate.<br/>#2 - Don't let Thorin navigate.<br/>#3 - See rules #1 and #2. <sup><a href="#fn1">1</a></sup><br/><span class="small"><br/><span class="small"><span class="small">1. When in doubt, don't let Thorin navigate.</span></span></span><br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	these little wars of words

**Author's Note:**

> _Your engine's revving, I can feel it from the garden_   
> _I can see it coming, I can see it come for miles_   
> _What you're thinking right now, 'cause I think that I can guess_   
> _If we set off now, we'll have the highway to ourselves_

They're lost. Again.

“Let me see that for a minute,” Bilbo says, reaching over and gesturing to Thorin for the map.

Thorin doesn’t relinquish it. If anything, his grip tightens even as he continues glaring down at the yellowed parchment. “I know what I’m doing,” he growls.

“That’s what you said six hours ago,” Bilbo sighs. _When you first got us lost,_ he thinks but doesn’t add. It’s as much for his own temper as it is for Thorin’s, if not more so. The less he remembers the full hour of trekking _in the exact opposite direction_ from where they’re supposed to be going, the better. “Do you know where we are now, at least?”

Thorin looks up from the map, then back down at it, and then up once more. “There’s a hill,” he says, pointing it out.

So there is. Where that gets them on the murky subject of their current location, Bilbo has no idea. He wonders, not for the first time, if it’s too late to backtrack to Erebor and acquisition someone with more skill in navigation. Probably, considering that it’s already been almost two days on the road for them. “Okay,” he says slowly. “And?”

Thorin mutters something under his breath and returns to staring daggers at the map.

“I’m sorry?”

“I said I know what I’m doing,” Thorin repeats, his eyebrows furrowing.

“You said that already.”

“Well, I am saying it again.” In a move that puts Bilbo closer to confirming his worst fears, Thorin turns the map upside down, squints, then rotates it right side up again. The fact that the way he looks at it doesn’t change, regardless of orientation, is not lost on Bilbo. “You need not worry.”

“You say that now…” Bilbo sniffs, turning to scan the countryside. The hill Thorin has identified is low-lying but one of many rising out of the land in the far distance. Just the sight of them makes Bilbo think of his poor feet and the rubbing he’s going to have to give them once they’ve stopped to rest properly. “How much longer do you think we’ve got to go?”

Thorin gives him a level look. “Distance or time?” he asks.

With great difficulty, Bilbo restrains himself from rolling his eyes. “Whichever.”

“Uh.” Another long, lasting look at the map, and then Thorin clears his throat significantly. “I must admit that I am not entirely certain.”

“Oh, for the love of — why did you even bother asking that, then?” Bilbo snaps. “If you don’t know, just say so.”

“I am _uncertain,_ ” Thorin returns. “That’s hardly the same thing as not knowing.”

“You know, the more you try to wriggle out of the fact that this is your fault, the more I’m going to remind you that it _is_.”

“Be quiet,” Thorin grumbles, but he does finally concede the map to Bilbo with an annoyed look. “I was told it would take half a day’s walk to the Mirkwood from the shore, at most. That means we should have roughly three hours more to go.”

“I think it’s safe to say that Bard was assuming we weren’t going to lose our way twice when he told you that,” Bilbo says tiredly as he snaps a pair of bronze calipers open. He’s not the best at map-reading, but he has a feeling he’ll perform better than Thorin, at any rate. Balin had insisted on teaching him the basics, though Bilbo couldn’t fathom a reason for his persistence at that point in time. Funnily enough, it’s all starting to make sense now.

Thorin looks as though he may continue arguing, but ultimately seems to reconsider. Instead, he folds his arms and turns away to look at the mountains in the far distance. "The Grey Mountains,” he notes dourly. “So that direction’s northward.”

“Or northeastward, or northwestward, depending on where we are now,” Bilbo amends, tracing a finger over the route marked out for them in black ink. He stops at a section where the line intersects with a number of others before breaking away and trailing further south. “It says here that we should have come to a crossroads along the way. I don’t remember seeing that.”

“Nor do I.”

“You know what, there’s nothing on here about having to travel over these kinds of reliefs either.” Wielding the calipers, Bilbo points to the hillsstretching southward. “We shouldn’t be seeing anything like those unless if we’d gone too far up north from the last checkpoint.”

Eyes narrowed, Thorin sidles over to peer at the map over Bilbo’s shoulder. “How much further would that be?”

It takes Bilbo a minute to measure the space on the map and arrive at an estimate in his head, and the result leaves him gaping stupidly for several more seconds. _“Ten kilometres?”_ he squawks in equal parts shock and despair.

“That can’t be right,” Thorin says incredulously.

“You don’t say,” Bilbo gasps, shaking his head. He has to set aside a moment to take deep, calming breaths. “Do you have any idea how long it’ll take for us to make up that distance?”

“About three hours, if we start walking now.” This makes Thorin look very pleased with himself. “Give or take an hour. That means I was right all along.”

“ _No,_ you clot.” Taking another deep breath, Bilbo thrusts the map into Thorin’s face. “ _Here’s_ where we are and _here’s_ where we’re supposed to be,” he stabs at the two points with his index finger, “and the time between that is three bloody hours. Maybe. Then, if we’re very, _very_ lucky indeed, it’s three more bloody hours from there to the edge of the Mirkwood, and that’s all assuming we keep on walking at top speed without stopping to rest. So, what exactly were you right about all along?”

Thorin blinks, then brushes both Bilbo and the map aside and scowls. He doesn’t appear to have anything to say, which is just as well. Barring an apology, there’s nothing Bilbo can think of that he’d like to hear out of Thorin at the moment, though _I’m a sulky git who'd get lost navigating a straight path_  would probably be good for a laugh.

“Right, then.” Bilbo folds the map into quarters and tucks it in his coat, tilting his head back to study the sky. “I don’t think there’s any way we’re going to get there before sundown, now. We should cover as much distance as we can while it’s still day and start over again tomorrow morning.”

“But…that would mean we’d have to set up camp.”

Bilbo nods. “That’s right, unless if you feel like walking through the night. Goodness knows I don’t want to. The sooner we get to the crossroads the sooner we can start making camp. You can get the tents out, and I’ll get the firewood to make us dinner.”

There’s no wry reassurance or agreement from Thorin at this, only a lowering of his head as he mutters something to the ground and scrapes the sole of his boot against the top of a rock half-buried in the dirt.

It’s late in the afternoon and they’re both tired, so Bilbo decides to let his patience iron out a little more. “I’m sorry?”

“I said,” Thorin catches Bilbo’s eye for a second before dropping his gaze again, “we don’t have the tents.”

This takes several seconds to sink in. “What do you mean,” Bilbo says, a heat flaring around his collar, “ _we don’t have the tents?_ You had them when we left, didn’t you?”

Thorin rakes his fingers through his hair, a sullen look crossing his face. “I was under the impression that we would arrive at the Woodland Realm within the day,” he explains. “I didn’t think we would need them, so I handed them over to Bard for safekeeping when we called in at Laketown.”

Bilbo just stares at him in muted astonishment. This unbelievable dwarf, he thinks. This amazing bonehead who has singlehandedly managed to strand them both out in the country with no shelter for the night.

“I would ask that you stop looking at me like that,” Thorin says. “If you were the one who was carrying them, you’d know that they’re much heavier than they look.”

“Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“Do I seem like I’m in the mood for jest?” He sounds much too affronted for the one who’s almost entirely at fault here.

With a headache already blooming at the back of his skull, Bilbo pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes shut. This does nothing to quell the discomfort whatsoever, so he scrubs a hand down his face and exhales noisily through his nose. It's cold and windy and getting darker and there is too much grey in the sky for it to mean anything else, only Thorin seems too busy with sulking to notice.

“You didn’t think we would _need_ them,” Bilbo repeats, refusing to let the anger rise. It doesn't help that Thorin gives him a sour look at this, like it’s Bilbo who neglected to mention that he left the tents behind and then proceeded to get them lost to the tune of an additional ten kilometres. “Would you mind telling me what your plan is if it started to rain this very instant?”

Before Thorin can answer, a peal of thunder crackles and echoes down from the faraway peaks. The grey clouds swelling around the mountaintops begin a slow drift towards them, steadily darkening the sky. Though dusk is still a ways off, they lose sight of the sun within the minute as the wind picks up. Bilbo narrows his eyes at Thorin, hands fisted, and yes, this is the point where he could very well kill him, make it look like an accident in case anyone asks. “Any time now, Thorin. Whenever you feel comfortable enough to share.”

It’s typical, of course, that Thorin just looks angry for several long seconds, his dark hair blowing about his even darker face, but then he clears his throat and nods sternly towards the hills. “We should get moving now and try to find some shelter. With any luck we’ll avoid the worst of the storm and wait it out. In the meantime, we can rest.”

“ _With any luck,_ he says,” Bilbo mutters, but he heaves his rucksack higher up onto his back and moves to follow Thorin over the windswept hills.

 

***

 

The rain overtakes them within minutes, but it turns out that even they can only get so unlucky in a single day. The storm breaks in what feels like a flood, coming down in sheets that shroud the landscape in sightless grey, which makes it even more of a miracle that they find shelter shortly after, or rather, are found by it. It’s a cave that they nearly miss in their haste, squirrelled away beneath the grassy overhang of one of the hills and spacious enough to accommodate a small party. Bilbo squeezes in first, then Thorin, who kicks away at the underbrush to create more sitting room and dumps his soaked rucksack in a corner.

Rainwater trickling down his face, Bilbo does the same at the other end of the cave, deliberately putting as much distance as possible between him and Thorin. It’s really nowhere near enough, but then again he’d bet they could put a whole country between them and it still wouldn’t be as far away from Thorin as he wants to be right now.

“It is fortuitous that we have found shelter,” Thorin grunts, his voice barely audible over the loud drumming of the rain.

Bilbo sits in the dirt and folds his arms across his chest. His shirt and vest have been completely soaked through and it’s just as cold inside the cave as it is outside, if not more so. He wonders, as he shivers hard enough for his teeth to start chattering, about the extra clothing he packed — surely all thoroughly made wet as well, now, judging by the sodden state of his bag.

“The storm is a heavy one.” Thorin nods affirmatively towards the entrance. “I daresay that the tents wouldn’t have done us much good even if we had them.”

“Like we would need them if you weren’t getting us lost all day long,” Bilbo mutters into his lap.

“We may still be able to make up some of the time that has been lost,” Thorin continues, directorial intent making its way back into his voice. “If sundown is to be upon us in a few hours, then we should be halfway to the Mirkwood by then.”

“And then _what?”_ Bilbo says across the cave, raising his voice to be heard over the storm. “You left the tents behind! There’ll be nowhere to sleep, even if we make it that far.”

Without missing a beat, Thorin inclines his head and replies, “I am confident that we’ll be able to find shelter, just as we have now.”

“You were confident of getting us to the Mirkwood by today,” Bilbo shoots back, and Thorin bristles visibly. “So first of all, you’re not going to get to navigate again, ever, and secondly, we could’ve been walking out in this storm for ages before we found shelter; we got lucky this time, is what I’m trying to say, Thorin.”

Thorin’s mouth turns in an unmistakable sulk that Bilbo would laugh at if it weren’t for the circumstances. “The map could have been clearer in its instruction, and I hardly planned for there to be a storm at this exact moment.”

“You and I know it’s not the bloody map’s fault, you cow!”

“What are you trying to imply?”

Bilbo means to answer, but cuts himself off with an explosive sneeze. He cups a hand over his mouth, excusing himself as he roots about in his pocket for a handkerchief. A second sneeze works its way out of him, this time stoppered against the palm of his hand but still loud even with the rain thundering away outside, before he locates his drenched handkerchief and blows his nose in it.

When he looks back up, Thorin is staring.

“What?” Bilbo snaps, squeezing out his handkerchief and wrapping it around his wrist. He swears he can almost feel his nose turning red, and he’s sure his face would be heating if it wasn’t entirely numb. As it is, he can barely feel his lips well enough to reliably shape words for very much longer. “I’m _cold,_ and wet, not to mention I’m almost certainly going to be down with something when all of this is over, no thanks to you.”

Thorin’s brows lift and his eyes darken, but they do not move away from Bilbo. “You believe that I am to blame for this.”

“ _Obviously,_ ” Bilbo says, and gets it out in time to sneeze into the handkerchief on his wrist again. A wave of cold rides its way through him, raising gooseflesh down the back of his neck. He shivers and tugs his coat tighter around his body, but it’s much too damp to provide any amount of warmth.

Ever the petulant child, Thorin turns to scowl at a bit of wall to his right, clearly no longer interested in pursuing conversation.

Bilbo reaches for his bag and tugs it in front of him to go through it. Sure enough, the rain has infiltrated the material easily and soaked through the contents of his bag, including Bilbo’s spare coat and the three days worth of clothing he brought. Ironically enough, his waterskin is the driest of his possessions, which is fantastic; the biscuits he’s kept in a pouch beneath it have not been as lucky.

“Wonderful,” Bilbo mutters as he continues to assess the damage. He’s been carrying the rest of their food as well — mostly vegetables and fruit, and a quantity of salted meat wrapped in brown paper — and while it’s all been slightly splashed, the biscuits turn out to be the only thing he can’t salvage. He does try biting into one before doing so, and makes a face as it turns into a pulpy mess inside his mouth. The taste is awful, sweet-starchy and almost earthy with rainwater. He spits out the wet biscuit and turns the pouch upside down to empty the rest onto the ground.

When he’s convinced that nothing else has suffered lasting damage from the rain, he retrieves his second coat and unrolls it. It’s still fairly soggy, but drier than the one he’s wearing, especially around the collar. When he’s swapped his coats around, he wears the first on top of the second and sits back down, burying his quaking hands in his armpits. By this time, Thorin is crouched in the middle of the cave, fiddling with something among the pile of rocks he's gathered in a circle.

“What’re you doing?” Bilbo asks.

The clicking noises that follow make it clear what Thorin’s trying to accomplish. He has some of the firewood from his rucksack arranged in a small pile on the ground, and is striking two pieces of flint into it. He grunts, water still dripping from his long hair, “Fire. We should try and get warm so long as the rain continues.”

“Thorin, that wood looks really, really wet.”

Click, click, click goes the pair of flints. There’s not even a visible spark; they’re probably wet from the rain as well. “What of it?”

Bilbo blinks bemusedly. “Well…you can’t make a fire with wet wood.”

Thorin looks up at Bilbo for a moment, his expression unreadable, and then returns to striking the flints together. Though still very much furious with him, Bilbo’s been around Thorin long enough to recognise defeat in the infinitesimal slump of the burly dwarf’s shoulders, such that he feels the knot of anger in his stomach loosen.

"If you think it’ll help,” Bilbo mutters. The pounding in his head has subsided, but it’s been replaced with what feels like a large quantity of wool, occupying the inside of his skull and making it difficult to hear or speak. He doesn’t know if he’s still shivering. It’s hard to tell beyond the fact that every muscle in his body is aching and his fingers are refusing to obey when he tries unclenching and clenching them.

A flash of lightning precedes the thunderclap that shakes the ceiling of the cave. Bilbo doesn’t even react, much too cold for the moment. He buries his face in his arms and tries to curl in onto himself, even more so than a person of his size and stature would be able to accomplish. Out of pure habit, he finds himself thinking of Bag End, of his fireplace and his armchair and his warm, soft bed, even though he’s been living in Erebor for months.

It takes him several seconds to realise that Thorin is speaking to him. Bilbo turns his face upwards; the effort almost dizzies him. “What?” he croaks.

Thorin’s still working away at the insurmountable task of getting a fire going, as though persistence could defy the laws of the physical world. He repeats, dryly and without looking up, “I asked what we had to eat.”

Remarkably enough, it doesn’t occur to Bilbo immediately that he wants to throw something heavy at Thorin’s head, but the thought does manage to forge its way through the cold. Pity his bag’s now only just out of arm’s reach, not that he’d want to root around in it for a large enough object; if he has to take his hands out for anything longer than a few seconds, he’s sure they’ll freeze and drop off.

So, he replies through chattering teeth, “Go f—f—find out for y—yourself. I’m n—n—not moving one b—b—bit.” His words sound muffled to himself, like he’s talking into a pillow. The headache from a while back has yet to subside; he clutches his knees to his chest and rests his forehead on them, seeking relief.

An annoyed look is Thorin’s response. “You’re in charge of food, are you not?”

Vaguely, Bilbo feels eyelids flutter outside of his accord. They’re _freezing,_ and his eyes are heavy inside his skull, glazing over every time he tries to open them. Strange as it is, they’re now the coldest part of his body, even more so than his fingers and toes, which have stopped prickling for now. He tries flexing them again, and yes, there they are, moving, but doesn't so much feel them as he's aware of them being there, like they’ve been detached from his body.

“If the rain is to stop within the hour then we should at least be fed, if not warm,” Thorin is saying, though the words are coming across distorted, like they’ve been jumbled up and sloppily rearranged in the right order. “If we are to hike on empty stomachs we will not get far.”

There’s a response to this somewhere in the foggy recesses of Bilbo’s mind, but he casts about and can’t summon up the words for it. Or anything else, for that matter. He can’t even think, let alone speak. Another peal of thunder shakes the cave and the ground twists like quicksand beneath him and Bilbo feels it rattling through his bones but they all seem to have been frozen in place, immobile.

“Bilbo?”

Idiot Thorin, Bilbo thinks. Idiotic, blasted, rubbish-at-maps Thorin, who somehow isn’t half-paralysed with shaking at this point, with his now-long beard and flints and, and his…his stupidly handsome _face,_ and that mouth that won’t stop flapping on and on even though it’s cold and wet and Bilbo’s so _tired_ —

“Are you alright? Bilbo?”

The cave wall is rough, and slippery with moss, but oddly comfortable against Bilbo’s face as he drifts about the dark rain and lightning and leagues of stormy sky, his pulse thudding weakly in his neck, and the cold, the cold, the _cold._

 

***

 

When Bilbo comes to, the first thing that occurs to him is that he’s lying flat on the cave floor. Which is weird, seeing as he’d been leaning against the wall when he fell asleep.

The second thing: _warm._

Not warmth from the sun, or a fire, but — there’s a heavy fur coat draped over him and his hands are tucked into his armpits, and as his brain slowly reboots he becomes acutely aware of a number of other things. There are arms around him, thick, muscular arms, with equally powerful hands that lie clasped against his lower back. The heartbeat he initially mistakes for his own is coming from the monolith of a chest he’s hauled to, which smells of dirt and sweat and rainwater. He’s pleasantly warm now, if not a tad stuffy, for the coat that envelops not just him, but the body lying next to him as well.

Stirring himself conscious, he hears Thorin rumble in front of him, “You’re awake.”

Bilbo exhales and lowers his head, opening his eyes only after he’s sure he actually is. Thorin’s anxious expression meets his, and when he speaks, it’s as though expecting rebuke, and also with a concern that has rarely ever touched his voice. “You fell unconscious, and I…couldn’t wake you. You were so cold, and I — I didn’t know how else to warm you quickly.”

It’s taut muscle and heat where the front of Bilbo’s forearms meet Thorin’s chest, and Bilbo distantly wonders about uncrossing his arms to plaster himself fully against Thorin, who is impossibly warm-bodied given it’s as cold as winter, perhaps even more so. Must be the muscles, Bilbo decides. Thorin certainly has a lot of them, and it’s more plausible than somehow being able to will his own body temperature higher.

“Honestly, Thorin,” Bilbo mumbles, embarrassed. “I just fell asleep, that’s all. Nothing to be worried about.”

The heavy look in Thorin’s eyes doesn’t lift. “You didn’t wake when I was calling your name. Not even when I shouted.”

Super. Now that he’s sufficiently warmed up, Bilbo feels his face flush. Of course he had to pass out in front of Thorin, who he’s still supposed to be angry with — impossible, now that he has Thorin wrapped around him like armour, so he doesn’t even try for it. Never let it be said that Bilbo’s one for holding on to grudges.

“Er,” Bilbo says. Beneath Thorin’s thick fur coat, he frees his hands and brings them to his belly, for want of anything more to do with them. He could put them around Thorin, most definitely, but it seems excessive given that Thorin’s own are already around him and there’s no immediate threat of them being separated any time soon. Not that he's entertaining that option or anything.

“How long was I out?” he asks, in lieu of an actual reply.

Thorin’s lips thin. “About half an hour.”

“Oh.” Not too long then, that they’ve been like this. He wonders why this comes as a bit of a shame to him. Equally bewildering is how he feels all the more warmer by thinking about Thorin bundling him up whilst he was unconscious, though he’s not sure what to make of Thorin deciding that the best way to warm him was with his own body.

“Is this alright for you? I can move away if you wish,” Thorin says.

“No — no,” Bilbo says, perhaps a little too quickly. “It’s…fine.”

“Do you feel well?” Thorin asks quietly. Firm but also probing, it carries the air of one who has feared and is preparing for the worst. As was the case with concern, it’s not a tone of voice Bilbo has often heard him use.

“M’fine. Honestly, I feel fine now.” Which is true in a way — he wasn’t expecting to wake up wrapped in five feet of dwarf king, a remarkable situation for anyone to find themselves in.

Thorin looks as though he isn’t going to let it go, but nods and continues, “Alright. Are you comfortable, then?”

Truth be told, Bilbo doesn’t know what to say to that either. The way they are now is certainly preferable to freezing to death on his own, and Thorin’s leaking so much body heat he may as well be a roaring furnace compared to how Bilbo was feeling before. But that they’re so _close_ is the problem — while he can’t imagine a reason why he’d want to, moving away from Thorin without him noticing would be very difficult indeed. There could be a little more space separating them, he’ll admit, but at the same time Bilbo doesn’t want to do anything that might potentially distance him from Thorin’s delicious warmth.

“It’s fine,” Bilbo finally says. He lies as still as he can manage and focuses on his own breathing. Outside, the rain continues to batter the earth, though the rhythm of it is slower than he remembers. Thorin’s arms hold him close, one pillowed under Bilbo’s head and the other flung over his hip. 

“Are your hands still cold?” Thorin whispers.

Bilbo shifts them higher up his own body. Much too late, he realises they’ve been partially resting at the top of Thorin’s abdomen, the skin of it hot even through the cotton of the dwarf’s tunic — and, Bilbo supposes, detectably cold the other way round. He flattens his hands against his breastbone but nods despite himself, as if fearful of dishonesty being something another person could sense by virtue of proximity.

“Put them against my stomach.”

Bilbo tenses again. “What?”

One of Thorin’s hands temporarily disengages from Bilbo’s back to hike up the hem of his own tunic, then locks around Bilbo once more. “Go ahead.”

Propriety nearly has Bilbo turning down the offer for possessing perfectly good — though not anywhere near as warm — armpits, but he swallows down the refusal in time and thinks about it, really thinks. There are any number of appropriate responses that do not involve touching Thorin’s bare skin, but try as he may, Bilbo cannot deny that he rather likes being nestled with Thorin, up close like this — his hand at the nape of Bilbo’s neck, chin nearly touching his forehead, a veritable paling of warmth between them. It’s like sleeping in the same bed as him, practically the same thing, except not really, and even so, what’s one more touch to all that?

Hesitantly, Bilbo slides his hands down and presses them to Thorin’s abdomen, palms turned outward. Thorin jerks, only ever so slightly, a slice of breath hissing through his teeth. Bilbo almost removes his hands at that, but then Thorin relaxes and shakes his head and shifts his body forward in implicit invitation.

“Sorry,” Bilbo offers lamely.

A dismissive grunt is Thorin's reply.

“This wouldn’t be happening if you weren’t so warm, you know,” Bilbo jokes, because he’s learnt that levity generally helps to bring out the good in a bad situation.

Thorin doesn’t smile or show any indication of being amused by this otherwise. His eyes remain on Bilbo, the look in them hard to make out by the failing light. Partly for that reason, Bilbo finds himself wishing Thorin had managed to get a fire going. Although, now that he thinks about it, then Thorin wouldn’t be clinging to him like a barnacle on a rock right now, and Bilbo would have had no conception of how incredibly warm Thorin could be.

He supposes they’ll make do without the fire.

The sound of rainfall outside lightens still. Minutes pass without them saying anything to each other. Bilbo yawns and drops his forehead to Thorin’s chest, Thorin’s braided beard tickling his cheek, and at the same time he takes to warming the backs of his hands over Thorin’s dense abdomen. It still feels like there's a bad idea lurking in that somewhere, but now he's warmer than he's been all day long, so it can't be that bad, not really, and with that reasoning in mind he allows himself to relax further and curl his fingers lower against Thorin's navel.

As if in reply, Thorin’s hand moves from Bilbo’s neck to rub more warmth into his shoulder. It slides lower, slipping off his arm to cup his shoulder blade, then his spine, fingers adrift in the flat of his back. Bilbo shivers in a manner that only partly has to do with the cold. He can’t remember when was the last time he’d been touched by another person in so intimate a manner. He tucks his chin against his own chest and lies as still as possible, waiting, listening.

The thumping of Thorin’s heart distracts Bilbo from the breath flocking down into his hair. It’s a quick, tympanic beat, almost eager against his hands. They’re close enough and touching in just the right amount of places for Bilbo to almost feel it quivering on the surface of his skin. He wonders if Thorin knows he can feel his heart beating, if it would be rude to react in any way or pass any comment regarding to that. Possible not, if Thorin were to query him on it. It’s hard to tell with dwarves most of the time when it comes to matters relating to closeness, as Bilbo has come to understand.

His own pulse, by comparison, is _racing_. Has Thorin noticed already? If he has, does he know that Bilbo knows that he's noticed? Not without difficulty, Bilbo prevents himself squirming. His breathing, he can control to some extent. The same cannot be said of his heart, which is now frantically throbbing away inside his chest. He wants to bury his face in somewhere and attempt to will it down, but the only immediate option that presents is Thorin’s neck, and while it tempts greatly, the last of Bilbo’s dignity holds him back.

The momentary dilemma is cut off by a shock of realisation — he’s hard, only just, but increasingly so the more he thinks about Thorin’s body aligned to his. Worse still is actually feeling it, which just _happens_ because Thorin is occupying his space, breathing in and out, and they’re less than an inch of being completely sandwiched against each other under his coat. Sure, they’ve trousers on, but it would take an idiot to mistake an erection for anything else, and Thorin’s no fool. Desperately, Bilbo thinks about wargs, and goblins, and the most horrid of smells, anything to keep his erection down, but it’s hard, gods, it’s _hard;_ he thinks of mud and burnt dinners and not Thorin’s mouth and nose and his naked, hairy body sliding up against him —

Thorin chooses this moment to hold Bilbo tighter, and his breath catches at the instance of unseen but unmistakable contact, sharp. Bilbo holds his own, and certainly, having the ground open to swallow them up would be a serendipity now; he’d take goblins over this, any day. Because his luck is just like that, no such thing happens, and there’s no point in feigning ignorance of what they’ve both just felt, so he swallows his misgivings down and looks at Thorin gingerly.

“I…er,” he squeaks, the apology dying on his tongue. If there are any explanations, none are likely to break through the fashion in which Thorin is watching him. Thorin is more than capable of withering people with his glares, Bilbo knows, but his look is not one of unkind intent, nor is it of anger or disgust. Rather, it’s stoic, almost curious in its observance, like he’s witnessing something he does not entirely understand. Surely dwarves have some concept of romance and physical attraction, like they do for sex — Bilbo knows that much for the latter, but he’d always put it down to necessity rather than pleasure, and never thought it his place to probe further than his own presumptions. A decision he now regrets making, but it had felt like the most prudent thing to do at the time.

Neither of them move for a long while. Thorin is the first to break the silence. “I do not wish to misconstrue,” he says slowly.

Bilbo doesn’t respond. He’s too busy keeping in all of his air, unsure of what to say with it. Maybe, if he holds it in long enough, he’ll pass out again and that would surely kill his erection dead. Not that it would do him any good at this point in time.

“I understand that needs — _wants_ — can be hard to subdue,” Thorin continues. His eyes flick down for a second and return to Bilbo’s face.

At this, Bilbo’s heart goes into momentary overload, and he attempts to bring it back down with a breath of air out, then another deep breath in. Limited success meets his failure to manage an answer, so he settles for a sigh that he hopes comes across as neutral before his throat seizes up with the panic of indecision. How had it come to this? It’d been nice enough when they were just keeping each other warm, and if his body knew what was good for it they could’ve probably stayed as they were up until the storm passed them over. Seems like a bit of a waste, really. Part of him wishes they could go back to that, where they would've probably just fallen asleep and that would've been that.

Then, there’s that part of him that’s fixated on the jumping pulse in his groin, that’s screaming bloody murder at his hands to move from where they are on Thorin’s abdomen. He stays them from doing so, and removes them once the overwhelming urge to explore intensifies. There’s all of three inches of space separating their faces, which isn’t helpful at all. The problem is especially egregious for the lower halves of their bodies, but Bilbo doesn’t move away from Thorin.

“I don’t," Bilbo says, then, "I'm not sure if," and, "hm," because Thorin's mouth is so very close to his and it feels like now is as good a time as any to stop talking. It would be so very easy to lean forward and kiss him. Or, for Thorin to. Bilbo wonders why there’s a difference, what it would be like to kiss a dwarf. The thought of a beard tickling his chin puts paid to his efforts to stop himself from getting any harder.

Thorin continues to watch him with impassive eyes. His arms loosen from around Bilbo before sliding away entirely. “What would you want of me?”

“Do you,” Bilbo croaks, and clears his throat to open it as well. “I meant to ask — are you, do you want… ah. As well?”

As indirect and stumbling a question as this may be, Thorin’s answering nod is neither rushed nor delayed. “Yes.”

“Ah.” Bilbo licks dry lips, because _good heavens,_ having all the subtlety and charisma of a sack of coal shouldn’t be such a weirdly endearing feature. “Is it just…only now, or, or —”

“ _Or,_ ” Thorin murmurs, moving his face closer until their noses are almost touching. The look in his eyes that Bilbo had taken to be guardedness is much different up-close — it’s _want_ , he realises, corroborated by the way Thorin nudges gently against Bilbo’s navel and, oh, yes, there it is, an answering line of foreign hardness, hot and obscene against Bilbo’s stomach.

Gods, Thorin’s cock. Bilbo gulps, because dwarves really are bigger than hobbits in just about every way.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Bilbo blurts. His stiffening cock howls against whatever barriers he has managed to hastily erect. He clenches his insides for that reason, trying to strengthen them, which would possibly work better if he wasn’t also thinking about all the places Thorin’s touching him at the moment.

Thorin raises an eyebrow. “If you do not wish it, you need only say so.”

“No, I — I’m just saying, that. Thorin, I don’t mean I don’t want to,” Bilbo says, and there’s supposed to be more to that, like a reason why they shouldn’t have sex — he’s a hobbit, Thorin’s a dwarf, a king as it happens, anything, _anything,_  only; this is Thorin, who Bilbo used to assume everyone thought about fucking at some point in their life, because being unfairly attractive just works like that, and who also never seemed to take an interest in anyone, period. Up until now, of course, and while Bilbo's still not sure what this will mean for them if this is allowed to happen, the time for pretending that neither of them are sporting cockstands stiff enough to temper steel with is long past.

"I just don't know if this is what we truly want," Bilbo tries. It's a good effort — he can just about believe it himself, with some trying. Thorin, on the other hand, does not look as easily convinced.

"I see," he says, although Bilbo gets the feeling he doesn't.

"Look, if we just thought about this for a while," Bilbo continues, but realises he doesn't know where to take it from there, because he _has_ been thinking about it very hard, and everything comes back to the dwarf lying beside him, the way Thorin had looked at him when he'd regained consciousness, and how he's being held right this instant. Exactly when was the last time he'd seen Thorin treat another person with such care, if at all? He can't remember.

That and the fact that he's thought about Thorin for longer than he dares to admit, well.

There's no dropping the thought, not while they're locked together like this for the foreseeable future.

"I mean, I think we should only if we're really, really sure, and. Which is not to say I don't  _like_ you," Bilbo adds quickly. "Gods know I do, I really do, but — look, it'll change things for us, don't tell me it won't." _  
_

"And you think it to necessarily be for the worse?"

Bilbo thinks about this, searches himself. "I don't know," he admits.

With that, Thorin kisses him. It’s the sort of kiss one sees coming from a mile away, but Bilbo does not move to avoid it. His mouth falls opens slightly in an _oh_ as Thorin’s presses against it. He doesn’t say anything, only lets his eyes flutter shut. Thorin’s lips are dry from windburn but warm, like the rest of him. They firm and soften, with just the barest sliver of exhaled breath wisping through them. It’s sour, and damp with body heat. The thought of breathing air from Thorin’s lungs makes something in Bilbo’s chest expand.

After much too short a while, Thorin pulls back gently, his gaze sober. “Been wanting that for a while," he murmurs.

"Hm." It's a vague enough sound that could either mean agreement or acknowledgement, but Bilbo does not elaborate.

Thorin closes his eyes for a moment, then looks at Bilbo again. "You must know that… I am amenable to this, but I believe we should not, if you are uncertain. I would not have you partake in anything, if it is against your wishes.”

Bilbo presses his lips together. He quite likes the way Thorin kisses, truth be told. Thorin has very nice lips under that beard — on a impulse of daring, Bilbo thieves another one to be sure of this, now focusing on how the short hairs of Thorin’s beard bristle against the corners of his mouth when their lips are touching. As expected, it itches, and a third kiss, short and chaste, turns it into a light burning.

“Well, when you put it like  _that_ ," Bilbo breathes.

Thorin reaches for him, arms snaking swiftly under the coat to encircle Bilbo once more. It’s too late to think about whether he remembers enough about what happens during sex to do this, so Bilbo moves by instinct, by desire, and kisses Thorin as though to knock the living daylights out of him. Far from being put off by this, Thorin makes an angry sort of snarl in his throat and takes Bilbo’s face in his hands, angles them better to get the pressure just right. The first hint of tongue flicking in sends a shiver through Bilbo’s centre; he retaliates at the second offence, and it’s fine, it’s all fine.

They don’t stop there. Thorin starts to rut against him, desperate and deliberate, and Bilbo wonders how much longer he’s going to last at the rate Thorin keeps rubbing his cock on Bilbo’s thigh. Coming by friction alone isn’t how he has ever envisioned a first time with anybody, but considering the fact that they’re in a cave in the middle of gods know where, he decides it’s best not to complain.

“Pants,” Bilbo says, voice going tight.

Thorin grunts, and shoves his hands down to the front of Bilbo’s trousers to work at laces, fabric, and — oh, his open mouth, still pressed to Bilbo’s, a soft, loving thing, wet as he puts his tongue in again, and again and again — fingers, bafflingly warm like the rest of him, slipping through cloth and wrapping snugly around Bilbo’s cock. Breath stuttering, Bilbo gasps himself back into rhythm. Their hips rock apart from each other, but Thorin’s grip remains steady. He strokes Bilbo with a calloused thumb, moving in teasing circles over the crown of his cock. Every now and again, he pumps the skin forth and back and Bilbo sees stars as shudders ride over the crest of his spine.

Oh, gods, they're having sex. He's having sex with Thorin and something about it makes him wish he'd given this a bit more thought — never mind, there'll be time for that later.

He makes a clumsy attempt to invade Thorin’s pants similarly, but it proves difficult for all the space he has and the stroking Thorin is giving him. The best Bilbo can manage is a fanning of fingertips along the top of Thorin’s groin, but this seems to be enough as Thorin groans and shifts his weight against Bilbo’s outer thigh, a crash of heat and thick muscle; he presses in, closer and closer, wedging a shin between Thorin’s legs and bumping his jaw against beard, tasting dwarf king at the chapped corner of his mouth — he hears Thorin sigh, and that’s good, so very good, and they need to get undressed _this instant_ but they’d probably freeze to death — would probably be worth it, Bilbo thinks fuzzily, as Thorin’s tongue continues to map the inside of his cheek.

“You’re cold,” Thorin observes gruffly.

Bilbo licks his lips. Trust Thorin to find something to be grumpy about even with another person’s cock in his hand. “I wonder whose fault that is,” he replies.

Thorin raises a sharp eyebrow at him, then starts moving down, under his coat — one hand pulling up Bilbo’s shirt to bare him from breastbone to cock, revealing his torso to the humid, semi-warm air between them, to rough hands, a calloused palm, a hungry, devoted mouth that kisses and licks and leaves Bilbo twitching with his jaw clamped tight to keep the whimpers back, his knee pressed to Thorin’s heaving ribs as the dwarf sinks lower, and then lower still, pausing every now and again to nibble at a different section of his body, his movements sloppy but dastardly pornographic. Thorin makes a satisfied noise when he reaches Bilbo’s soft belly, nipping and sucking at it obscenely — gods, that mouth, that beard, making Bilbo’s balls ache from so very far away every time he thinks about rubbing his cock against Thorin’s cheek, just to feel him in a way he’s allowed to hold in his mind now — Bilbo scrambles for something to hold on to, moans a little, puts his hands on Thorin’s shoulders and digs his fingernails in, and prays to the gods that _hurt,_ because it wouldn’t be remotely fair any other way.

“You’ve — done this before,” Bilbo breathes, thinking out loud without meaning to.

“You would think me a maid?” Thorin rumbles up at him; not offended, merely amused.

Not quite knowing what he was thinking at the moment, Bilbo exonerates himself with a loud gasp as the sensitive head of his cock greets the bottom of Thorin’s chin, and his hips jerk reflexively, shoving his entire cock, sweaty and slick with precome, down the front of Thorin’s throat, and it’s a miracle Bilbo doesn’t lose it there and then because heavens, getting beard burn _there_ shouldn’t be this much of a turn on, or anywhere in general, but — Thorin’s chuckling, and burying his nose in Bilbo’s groin, exhaling heavily against his shaft and planting a soft kiss there as he presses two fingers up behind Bilbo’s sack before sliding backward to circle over his hole, fuck, fuck, _fuck;_ he wants to be inside Thorin now, thrusting into him, mouth, arse, Bilbo doesn’t care where, and his mind is chasing too many things at the same time, like, oh — how he wants to taste the salt-dirt of Thorin’s skin again, wants there to be no space between them at all from now up till the moment it’s all over, and he can hardly think anymore, not with Thorin licking at the crown of his cock like the horrid tease Bilbo has never once imagined he could be.

He’s about to shriek with frustration when Thorin finally stills and takes him into his mouth, swallowing the head of his cock and giving him a good, firm suck. The inside of his mouth is damp and tight and his stroking tongue is all Bilbo can think about as his palms brace harder against Thorin’s collarbones. He gurgles, and bucks harder, desperate for more friction. As if reading his thoughts, Thorin drags his lips down the length of Bilbo’s cock as far as it seems he can go, and it takes everything in Bilbo’s power not to accidentally choke him. It’s too much and not enough all at once. The cool air keeps him back from the edge but Thorin is drawing back now, friction in counterpoint as he abuses Bilbo’s slit with the tip of his tongue, and it’s a damn good thing Bilbo can’t actually see Thorin for the coat still partially draped over the two of them because he has a pretty good feeling he’ll lose his mind at the sight of his cock filling up Thorin’s mouth.

“Thorin Thorin oh Thorin oh Thorin,” Bilbo pants. Names are preferable to swearing out loud, verbs a welcome distraction. His whole body is alight with need. It’s madness. It’s insanity. He tries to remember the last time he’s had love made to him in this manner before and only comes back down to the arousal stabbing him in the gut. “Oh gods, Thorin. Suck me, suck me, oh, gods, that’s so good, you're so good, Thorin, oh, Thorin, Thorin —”

Thorin obliges all too willingly. He doesn’t try deep-throating Bilbo again, but it’s fine, more than enough, perhaps even better for having that extra wiggle room to rock into Thorin’s mouth. Bilbo thrusts clumsily, worrying the underside of his cock on Thorin’s tongue and enjoying the way Thorin’s beard grazes his skin every time he pushes in. Once or twice, Thorin adds a scrape of teeth, a move that earns him light smacks against his cheek. It’s easy to feel the grins that Thorin answers with each time, and Bilbo’s thinking of a way to make him pay as Thorin licks him, licks and mouths and bobs, lips suckling rapidly until the rush building within finally surges up and overwhelms.

Thorin swallows around him, lets out a loud groan and slackens against Bilbo’s lower body. Bilbo strokes his long hair with quavering fingers, burning fever-flush all over with orgasm but paradoxically cold once more. Distantly, he registers the fact that the rain outside has diminished to a slow pattering. He should probably tell Thorin; must be hard to hear from under there.

Instead of doing that, Bilbo lowers his chin and sighs, “Now you.”

Thorin shakes his head into Bilbo’s belly, fixes his undone trousers and crawls up next to him. “No need,” he murmurs, tugging his coat back into place where it has slipped off of them.

Bilbo wraps an arm around Thorin’s waist and lets himself be kissed. Thorin smells of sex, tastes of come, and it’s still difficult to fathom exactly how any of this has happened. “I _want_ to, for you…”

“It is done.”

“Huh?”

Thorin turns his face downward to press his forehead to Bilbo’s, kissing him on the nose. He rests a hand beneath his cheek, moving the other one up the side of Bilbo’s body until it is curled around his back. “I mean to say that I am… satisfied.”

Bilbo wrinkles his nose in confusion, then makes an exasperated sound when he understands. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Thorin — really? I didn’t even do all that much to you! How is that even possible?”

“You are a most comely creature,” Thorin returns smoothly. His hand runs lower down Bilbo’s back to squeeze his arse. “I have lain with a great many others before I knew you, dwarrows and dwarrowdams, but you — it would seem easier, with you.”

“Best not to talk about other people you shagged right after you’ve just sucked me off,” Bilbo says. “For all you know that could be the last time I let you anywhere near my cock.”

Thorin frowns. “Surely you do not mean that.”

Well, no. All the same, Bilbo purses his lips and looks down to hide his smile. “Keep talking and you’ll find out,” he warns.

Thorin doesn’t smile, but he does stop scowling, which is just as good as a smile on his terms.

“I think it’s just about stopped raining,” Bilbo notes.

“Indeed.”

Bilbo looks up at Thorin. "So. Um. What now, then?"

For a long time, Thorin stares back at him. "It would be hasty to move off now. I see no reason for that."

"Not that," Bilbo says. "I meant… you and me, are we. Like. You know."

Inelegantly phrased, the seriousness of the question still finds its way to Thorin's expression. "Yes," he says simply. His eyes continue to search Bilbo's face. He moves his arm lower down Bilbo's side, a warm and soothing weight over him. "We can be, if that's what you mean."

"Because it'll be okay if we are, right?" Bilbo murmurs, and is surprised to find that it doesn't sound completely ridiculous.  _We'll be okay_.

"I don't see why not," Thorin says simply, smoothing his hand over the base of Bilbo's spine. "I would like that very much."

And that's alright, yes, that's just about right. Even if they can't know for sure. With that tucked away at the back of his mind, Bilbo sighs and snuggles closer to Thorin. "Me too," he mumbles, stifling a yawn in Thorin's shoulder.

"Get some rest, if you're still tired," Thorin says, a now-familiar softness in his voice.

“We’ve still got three hours to make up for, don’t you forget,” Bilbo reminds him, prodding him in the side.

Thorin dismisses this with a grunt and a shrug of his shoulders. “The Woodland Realm can wait. Elves are patient.” Then, with a long, dry kiss between Bilbo’s eyes, “They can wait. It would be better if we continued on when the rain has fully stopped.”

Fair enough. Bilbo sighs and rolls over to settle back into Thorin, clasping the dwarf's hands at his chest. "I'm still angry at you for leaving the tents behind, just so you know."

"Still?"

"Yes. If you think giving me a good lay will make me forget that was your fault, you've got another thing coming."

To Bilbo's surprise, Thorin chuckles. "If you believe that to be a good lay, you're the one who has another thing coming."

"You're a dolt."

Thorin chuckles again. "But you did like that, did you not?"

Bilbo rolls his eyes before he remembers that Thorin can't see. "I've had better." A lie, but Thorin doesn't need to know that.

"You shall indeed."

"I really doubt that."

"Enough." Thorin's lips find the back of his head, fingers squeezing his lightly. "We should rest well for now, and move when we can."

Bilbo thinks to argue, he really does, but just sighs again and lets himself relax into Thorin's embrace, where it’s cosy and secure and stiflingly warm, and together, they wait for what’s left of the rain to pass.

**Author's Note:**

> _It's just like you told me, that I should learn to let it all go_   
> _Just took 'til now, for me to get just what you meant_   
> _My heart is thumping, I can feel it in my fingers_   
> _No fear, no anger, we are a law unto ourselves_


End file.
